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Study Depression also severely damages our heart
It has long been known that factors such as overweight or obesity, high cholesterol levels and constant stress can damage the heart and lead to serious illnesses. Researchers now report that depression is similarly dangerous in this context.
Depression affects physical processes
Depression is so widespread that it has long since become a widespread disease. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. According to health experts, in Germany around six million people are affected within one year. The WHO estimates that suicide and suicide will be the second most common cause of death in the world because of depression in 2020. But the disease not only affects the mental state, but can also affect physical processes.
Depression not only affects the mental state, but can also affect physical processes. They carry a similarly high risk of cardiovascular diseases such as high cholesterol or obesity. (Image: Jürgen Fälchle / fotolia.com) Increased diabetes risk and stroke risk
Years ago, scientific research has shown that depression can increase the risk of diabetes. In addition, researchers reported that the mental illness could provoke strokes.
German scientists have now found that depression for men poses a similarly high risk of cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or obesity.
This is reported by researchers from the Helmholtz Zentrum München together with colleagues from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) in the journal "Atherosclerosis".
High risk of cardiovascular disease
Karl-Heinz Ladwig, group leader at the Institute of Epidemiology II of the Helmholtz Zentrum München and professor of psychosomatic medicine at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the TU München as well as a scientist at the DZHK, stated in a communication: "There is hardly any doubt that depression is present Risk factor for cardiovascular disease. "
"The question is rather: what is the relationship of depression to other risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol, obesity and hypertension - which weighs how difficult," says the expert.
To address this question, the team of scientists examined data from 3,428 male patients between the ages of 45 and 74 and observed their progression over a ten-year period.
"The work is based on a prospective population-based dataset of the MONICA / KORA study, which, with a total lifetime of up to 25 years, is one of the few large scale studies in Europe that enable such analysis," said statistician Dr. Jens Baumert from Helmholtz Zentrum München, who is also involved in the publication.
Only hypertension and smoking are more dangerous
The study compared depression with the four major risk factors. "Our research shows that the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease from depression is almost as high as high cholesterol or obesity," summarized Ladwig.
According to the information, only hypertension and smoking are associated with a higher risk.
In terms of population, the proportion of cardiovascular deaths caused by depression is about 15 percent. "This is comparable to the other risk factors such as hypercholesterolemia, obesity and smoking," said Ladwig. Here, the proportion ranges from 8.4 to 21.4 percent.
Why only data from men were evaluated
"Our data shows that depression reaches a median effect size within the major non-congenital risk factors for cardiovascular disease." Therefore, Ladwig suggests: "In high-risk patients, the diagnostic evaluation of depression as a concomitant disease should become standard. That could be grasped with simple means. "
According to a news agency dpa, the lead investigator explained that the study evaluated men's data because women under the age of 65 rarely have cardiovascular disease. However, the results are basically transferable to women.
Although earlier studies had shown a link between depression and cardiovascular disease, but not to that extent.
In mental illness physical side in view
Arno Deister, President of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN), said according to dpa, the new addition to the study was "the statement that depression can be as much a risk factor as other classic diseases, of which you know that for a long time ".
Although physicians in patients with mental illness usually also the physical side in the view, and in physical mental. "But collaboration between family doctors, cardiologists and psychiatrists could make us a little better," says Deister.
Depression is often recognized late or not at all. Moreover, they are not considered a serious disease in parts of society. "Depressed people often have the impression they are not really ill - or think they've done something wrong and are to blame themselves," said the expert. But depression goes deep into the organism. "Depression is a form of massive stress."
Depressed cardiac patients at special risk
Depressive cardiac patients are at particular risk: "Patients do not take their medication as strictly and do not care as well for nutrition and exercise as non-depressed people," explained the Munich cardiologist Petra Hoppmann in the dpa report.
In addition, depression on the vessels also affects stress hormones that alter the metabolism. Because of the resulting chronic inflammatory processes veins can clog more easily.
The new study shows this effect more clearly than before. Similar processes would have been observed by other scientists even in chronic fatigue.
"Best regards" and not "brain greetings"
It is well known that the heart reacts strongly to the psyche via stress hormones. Since the early 1990s, cardiologists have also been dealing with the so-called "broken heart syndrome".
The "broken heart" leads in case of heavy losses, separations and mental stress to symptoms similar to an infarction. That's how the heart contracts and the chest hurts. The cause, however, is not a closed vein, but a stress-related damage to the heart muscle, which usually heals again.
As Deister explained in the dpa message, phrases such as "Someone dies of a broken heart" and "Taking something to heart" refer to the particular relationship between heart and feeling. "We also write" cordial greetings "under a letter - and not" cerebral greetings "." (Ad)